GUN CONTROL: Committee Approves Trafficking Bill

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GUN CONTROL: Committee Approves Trafficking Bill

In Washington D.C Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the first of several pieces of gun legislation.

Thursday’s bill would make gun trafficking a federal crime punishable by 25 years in prison. The 11 to 7 vote now sends the bill to the senate floor.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was the only republican in the 18-member committee to vote in favor of the gun trafficking measure.

However he did add, “I think it is necessary to point out that had this bill been law at the time, Sandy Hook still would have happened. It would not have stopped a mentally disturbed person from stealing a gun from his mother and then shooting unarmed children at an elementary school for several minutes before police arrived. “

President Obama has been pushing for tighter gun control laws since the Sandy Hook Shooting.

This is the first of three bill’s addressing gun legislation the committee will consider. The others include a ban on assault weapons and large ammunition magazines and expanded background checks.

Those are two areas where Senator Grassley says he wants fewer restrictions. “What we’re talking about here today is freedom, freedom not only guaranteed by the constitution, but what the Supreme Court recognized as a pre-existing right of self-defense. Individuals do not need the government’s permission to defend themselves,” he said.